The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Calligraphic exercises and verses of Hafiz (Persian, about 1325–1389) (verso)

1575–76
calligraphy by

Mahmud ibn Ishaq al-Shahabi

(Persian, active mid- to late 1500s)
Persian, Uzbekistan, Bukhara
Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Page: 28 x 23.8 cm (11 x 9 3/8 in.)
Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 2013.347.b
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The work was part of an album of paintings collected in India before 1811 by a Scottish politician who worked for the British East India Company.

Description

This fine calligraphic work is signed and dated by a calligrapher who was highly regarded in both Safavid Iran and Mughal India. Mughal albums typically had a painted portrait or figural scene on one side, and a work of calligraphy on the other. The British civil servant Sir Charles Forbes made his album following that format.

The verses are a lament over a lack of wine, beginning:
For some days now the Daughter of the Vine has been lost to us,
Gone away to tend to her own affairs.
Be alert and prepared as a search party.
Her dress is of rubies, and she wears a tiara of delicate glass.
  • before 1811–1849
    Sir Charles Forbes, 7th Baronet [1773–1849], Bengal, London, and Scotland, by descent to his great-grandson, Colonel Sir John Forbes
    ?–1962
    Colonel Sir John Stewart Forbes [1901–1984], Baronet, DSO, DL, Allargue House, Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK, consigned to Sotheby's London for sale
    December 10, 1962
    (Sotheby’s, London, Western and Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 10 December 1962, lot 25, sold to Ralph Benkaim)
    1962–2013
    Ralph Benkaim [1914–2001] and Catherine Glynn Benkaim [b. 1946], Beverly Hills, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2013–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Art and Stories from Mughal India. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 31-October 23, 2016).
  • {{cite web|title=Calligraphic exercises and verses of Hafiz (Persian, about 1325–1389) (verso)|url=false|author=Mahmud ibn Ishaq al-Shahabi|year=1575–76|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2013.347.b